i am a poor writer. she is a beautiful stripper. i have been homeless. she has been an escort. it has
been a life of struggle. struggle to pay rent, to find simple stability. to afford cigarettes.
people promise things they cannot do. she gets that a lot when she takes off her panties and
shakes her ass at men. she wears the ring, our promise. they ask if she is married. she asks if they
are. end of get-to-know-your-stripper time. now give me five dollars. then come the promises.

"it's your lucky day."

"you should be a flight attendant."

"i would treat you better than your ex."

"you are too beautiful to work here."

and her favorite, "i have money if you need it."

she tells me these things an hour before she points her toes skyward in preparation to receive my
seed. i am her gardener. she is my fertile earth.
these things once made me uncomfortable.
it isn't a hard job, she says, it just feels like it sometimes.

i am a poor man plowing my planet.

i have played my music before thousands. she has danced for the same. we talk about getting her
back in school. she is a film student. she is changing her major to theology. we talk about getting
my word published. we laugh about world domination jokes. she plays with my seed on her
tongue. she gasps for me to pinch her nipples when she comes. i do. hard.

she wants christina ricci to play her in the movie she wants to make about us. i want johnny depp
or vincent gallo to be me.
promises.
i tell her that i will write a book about her, about her life about her love about
loss and pain about the way she cries my name when i hurt her with love with
lust for peace and frustration. with words.

i love her pussy. through her clit is pierced a blue jewel. it matches her eyes. her pink and blue
things make money. she is wisdom clutching the word of god. i write about love about sex and
death about the come i leave to dry upon her breasts. she is pink and purple, black and blue. i am
mister radiant, pouring oil upon her glowing shadow in the hotel room we share with her magic
books and my typewriter. she is my cross. i am her nail. we are the reflection made by the
beginning searching for its end.
i tie her up and fuck her ass.
we struggle to afford her birth control pills.

she tells me she thinks about me when she dances for other men. she thinks about how much
smarter she is than the men she dances for. a smile upon her face.

she got pregnant with her ex. he spent the abortion money on porn. her womb hurt. the baby born
dead. it sucked her nutrients dry and the vomit cut holes in her teeth. we talk about fixing them. if
her eyes were blind, god would be a hate-filled and spoiled child. her hurting smile only proves
that god promises to redeem her dream of success when vanity ends and the truth of her
possessions give more than take. such a burden, to own the word of god and wonder why she
must carry it until death with dreams and beauty and misunderstanding.

she takes off her clothes for those that will pay for it.
suckers.
i get her for the price of my word.

Trent Reker was born on a train in the Arizona desert. He's been dead and has a cool scar to
prove it. Waking from a 24-hour coma, doctors told his family he'd never be able to converse
intelligibly. It's arguable that they were right. Two months later he put together his first
sentence, "Can I have pickles?"

His first novel, "untitled book for the masses #1," is the story of a man who< accidentally
finds he can levitate. Taking place in 2012, drugs are legal and religious and medical changes
have left society spiritually and emotionally lacking. In this book, mass insanity is just
another newspaper story met with shrugged shoulders at the checkout line. Living in New Orleans
when Katrina blew in, Trent walked the city four days with his little family praying, eventually
hitchhiking back roads along the Mississippi. As they sobbed, he dragged them along toward
inevitable rescue. He has been published by national literary magazines Border Senses, 20
Dissidents and Atonal Apples. Trent's blog can be found at misteradiant.com. He has an honorary
Doctorate in Metaphysics from the Universal Life Church and wants to start a new religion, but
he has to kill everybody first. His next written project, "How to cry and still kick their ass,"
is partially represented here at Underground Voices.